Airship Carvanning - Now in Full HD - Top Gear - Series 14 - BBC https://youtu.be/hGSqq6R5hm8James's airship caravanning adventure hits the rocks as he drifts into Norwich airport's airspace while Richard, unsure of which caravan park James will actually end up in, undertakes a tour of the South East in the Lamborghini Gallardo! First uploaded 18/05/2010

Like some people want to retire to a yacht, I've wanted to retire to a solar-powered airship since before I entered the workforce.

I've been following Aeroscraft, SkyCat, Walrus HULA, HAV and all of the other players in the semi-rigid or rigid airship game for a long time now. I feel with modern meteorology, modern materials and other modern technology, we could make safe airships using hydrogen instead of less-buoyant, more expensive helium like everyone wants to use. The ignorant and semi-informed layman still misunderstands the Hindenburg disaster nigh on 80 years later because nobody feels any compulsion to look closer into it. There are low-hanging fruit to be grabbed in demonizing it and it was done by the Nazis so why pursue it?

>>21229He should have brought an anchor with bungee cord. That way he could have landed facing into the wind, and then not gotten dragged along. The reason he did not do so here, I think, is that he would have been tangled up into the envelope had he been dragged downwind when facing into the wind. I need to watch the full episode at some point.

I think the basic concept is sound, it just needs to be implemented properly; but the lack of time, budget, and engineering ability is what results in such enjoyable to watch shenanigans and failures that made that show so fun.

Is the short of it that the Doping on the Hindenburg outer skin was extremely flammable?

There is a science fiction book by Dean Ing, "The Big Lifters" where in one of the subplots the protagonists developed a ground laser boosted (for altitude boosts over the mountains) airship system that could pick up and drop off multimodal freight containers from trains. His goal was to get big rig long haul 18 wheelers off the roads. I think you might enjoy it.

>>21235Like a fast yacht, a properly designed airship can outrun the weather, or it could fly above the weather.